Chapter 35: So Strange
Thank you to my reviewers for being my inspiration. My love goes out to aeriestar, Knowing grace, PurpleFairy11, luvgirl101, Katherine Sparrow, Dalonega Noquisi, kimberlybluebelle, bloodyrose129, KeepingThemAtBay and Prost. Also my eternal gratitude to everyone who has added this story to their favourites or follows.
"It seems so strange," Fili hummed, his long nose deftly brushing across Khayl's jawline.
"Hmm?" Was the eloquent reply he received from a rather distracted red-head. Khayl deftly attempted to shake the fogginess from her head, not an easy task when she and Fili were still curled on the lounge, her still half sat on his lap. The dynamic between them had certainly changed and Khayl suddenly found herself craving this kind of physical intimacy which she had been denied for so long. It felt good to have someone in her arms, someone to kiss, to talk to, to laugh with and, often, to laugh at. And it felt right that the someone was Fili.
"Not so long ago we despised one another," Fili mused, looking vacantly past everything with troubled blue eyes. Khayl tucked her head between his shoulder and neck, placing a hand over the place where his heart beat solidly in his chest. She could feel his pulse beneath her hand, even through the layer of his tunic. Oddly enough it seemed to thrum in perfect sync with the rapid pounding in her own skull. Mila and Dis hadn't been overly forthcoming when speaking of ways that the Bond could change a couple, preferring to inform Khayl that it generally differed from pair to pair, the power of their love manifesting in different ways.
It all seemed rather wishy-washy to Khayl, but her heart told her that it was right. And if the beau whose heart beat powerfully in tandem to her own spoke any truth, it was right to him too. Things had changed so radically and so quickly, but already Khayl was beginning to dread each moment she was away from him. With each moment he was not smiling at her, touching her or sharing with her a glance that felt so intense and private she felt bereft, as though she had lost something precious. Every time she saw him, without fail, her heart would begin galloping in her chest, her blood would sear through her veins like dragon fire and her mind would lose its train of thought. Ever since they had survived the orcs, they had seemed to work together on a whole other frequency from everyone else around them.
Yes, it was right. Yet Khayl could not find the words to express this to Fili. It turned out she didn't need to anyway.
"It does not matter anyway," Fili said with dismissive hum low in his chest. He nodded resolutely to himself. Khayl wondered if his words were for himself or for her. "I know that I love you, and that is all I am concerned with. It no longer matters how terribly this all began."
Khayl could have melted into an enormous puddle of emotional mess then and there. Instead she smiled goofily, curling a hand around the back of his neck.
"It was quite an epic mess, wasn't it?" Khayl said with a grin. "I mean, what a silly way to get two people to realise that they are destined to be together. Making them hate each other. Pfft."
Fili laughed, his teeth flashing. Khayl marvelled at how bright he seemed when he laughed and smiled.
"I blame it on Amad," Fili said, guffawing. "If she had of just told me…"
"I blame it on every single dwarf in Ered Luin who knew and didn't say," Khayl mock pouted. "I mean, how embarrassing is it that we walked around for so long, openly despising each other, and everyone knew that we were actually fated to be together?"
"It was quite embarrassing when we at last found out," Fili admitted sheepishly. "Even Kili knew what was going on."
"Now that is shameful," Khayl laughed. "Oh! We were so damn oblivious! I can't believe it. People must have just looked at us and thought us such thick-witted fools!"
"And you know what?" Fili asked the dwarrowdam who shook her head with a never-wavering smile on her face. "I couldn't care less what they thought."
"Oh? And why is that?" Khayl asked, feigning ignorance.
"Because I got the most wonderful dwarrowdam of them all, and I'm going to marry her and everything will be perfect," he sighed, almost wistfully, laughing when Khayl scowled.
"Where is this female? I'll cut off her braids and choke her with them!" The red-head declared, baring her teeth. There was a moment before the two of them howled with laughter and then Fili tenderly pressed his forehead against hers. He let out a heavy exhalation.
"Oh Mahal," he almost moaned, and Khayl felt a shudder run down her spine. "How have I ever lived without you, my heart?"
"I have no idea," Khayl smirked. "I am pretty wonderful. Meeting me tends to be a life-altering experience for many people."
Fili groaned and kissed his betrothed tenderly upon the lips. "Just shut up Khayl."
"Shutting up," Khayl vowed before grumbling as he withdrew for the kiss, preferring to look upon her disgruntled expression.
"Do not tempt me, vile seductress," Fili warned and Khayl raised a brow, though a smile played at her lips.
"Vile? Seductress?" she queried, innocence written all of her face even as mischief sparked in her eyes.
"You have no idea what you do to me," Fili muttered, resting his forehead upon her shoulder. Khayl smiled as she placed a hand in his hair and tenderly stroked her fingers over a tightly woven braid.
"I think I might," she confessed, the burning in the pit of her stomach and the rapid pounding of her heart attesting to the the fact.
Fili made an indiscernible sound in the back of his throat before he stiffened beneath her touch.
"Khayl, " he said softly to gain her attention.
" Hmm?" she responded. He looked up and stared straight into her eyes.
"Might I braid your hair?" he asked, running a few strands of the soft, ginger tresses through his calloused fingers. Khayl blushed, a deep red spotting her cheeks and clamouring up her the side of her neck, the tips of her ears set to burning. Such was the intensity within the dwarf's hooded gaze.
"Thought you'd never ask," she managed to choke out. Fili smiled at her and she ran a thumb across one of his prominent dimples in wonder. How did she ever get so lucky? "But let me braid yours first."
Fili acquiesced by sliding to the floor and settling between her knees, a slight groan betraying him as he rested his back against the lounge.
"You are still not fully healed," Khayl accused gently, prodding him in the back of the head. Fili grumbled something unintelligible in reply. Khayl sighed in a long-suffering way as she sectioned off a piece of hair on the right side of his head beneath the braid that was already at his temple. She split it into several pieces as she spoke. "If it does not get better, you should tell Thorin."
Fili did not reply, knowing she was right, but simply marvelling in the feel of her fingers against his scalp. He had gotten a the blunt end of a spear ramped into his back during their fight with the orcs. It had struck him sharply just below his right shoulder blade. It was often as though he could still feel the imprint of where the spear struck him if he breathed too deeply or moved to exuberantly. Khayl was the only one who knew; he had succeeded in hiding it from the others. If they knew they would certainly never allow him to go on the quest if he wasn't in peak condition.
"I will mention it to him if I need to," He conceeded. Khayl huffed a sigh once again.
"Fili…" she began, before thinking better of what she was going to say. Fili waited patiently for her to continue speaking, and to continue working on the braid. It just felt so good to have her hands by his head, the gentle tugging on his scalp. Having her so close…
Then the toe of her boot jabbed him in the lower ribs.
He yelped, taking in a sharp intake of breath that set his muscles on fire. The pain went from where the spear impacted right around, across his abdominals to just under his sternum. The pain almost brought tears to his eyes. He had not been expecting that at all.
"Khayl!" he cried out in confusion. He went to turn about and glare at her but a sharp tug on his hair reminded him to stay still. He thought perhaps they should work on their communication skills a little better.
"I won't tell anyone about it," she said, her lips close to his ear and the whisper of her breath on his cheek sent shivers down his spine. "But I need you to think about yourself, and the others. What if keeping it a secret puts everyone at risk? What if it gets you killed? What about me then?"
"It won't, I swear it. I think it's getting better anyway," Fili said quickly, wanting to reassure her and defend himself in the same breath. Even so, he could practically hear Khayl's eyebrow lift itself sceptically. So he said; "It hasn't been bothering me quite so much when sparring, or in the forge."
"But you are not sleeping," Khayl finished. She had made beads for this occasion and pulled one from her pocket now. She tied off the end of the braid and clasped the bead onto. She left the clasp that held Fili's hair from coming forward over his face and placed her own in Fili's hand for the time being. He sat quietly, admiring the silver-work. The clasp was inlaid with gold.
"How do you know?" he asked Khayl. He didn't even know how she knew about his injury in the first place. He had never mentioned it to her, and he didn't think she would notice it unless she knew it was there.
"I can feel your pain at night," Khayl confessed. She had yet to begin on the other side of his hair so he turned about and looked at her. There was an unnameable emotion in her eyes, mottled brown and green as they were. "I lay there in silence and I can feel your shortness of breath, the way you curl into a ball to try and alleviate it."
"The bond is much stronger at night," Fili said, whether to himself or to Khayl, neither of them knew.
"We are vulnerable to one another then," Khayl confessed with a slightly troubled smile. "Our defences are down. It is the same when one of us feels a very powerful emotion."
"I could feel your trepidation as you approached, though I didn't know where you were or what you were doing," Fili admitted.
"It is so strange…" Khayl began softly.
"To know that you are never alone," Fili finished, brushing Khayl's hand which lingered idly by his ear.
"It is a beautiful sensation though," Khayl separated several strands on the left side of his head just as she had done previously. She made a mental note to do something wonderful for Mila who had gone above and beyond the call of duty to teach Khayl the necessary braids. "I do not know how your mother can be alone now."
Khayl bit her lip, fearing that she had touched on an extremely sensitive subject, but Fili didn't seem phased.
"She is strong," he said. "So very strong. I would be an absolute wreck."
"I understand that feeling," Khayl hissed between her teeth as two strands of hair tangled and she had to unwind and redo a small section of the braid.
"I remember what she was like after my father died," Fili sighed, his memories going way back to a happy childhood marred by a singular black event. "I thought she was going to die. She wouldn't talk, or eat or communicate with others. Uncle cared for Kili and I as best he could, but I was so afraid that Amad was going to die. So I asked her if she was going to leave Kili and I alone with uncle. She looked at me clearly for the first time in nearly a year and said that we would surely drive uncle to ruin and then the line of Durin would end itself. She laughed and just kind of… came back to life. It was terrifying."
"That must've been hard to watch as I child," Khayl said finishing the braid and capping it with the other bead. She took the clasp from Fili's fingers and put a twist in the two braids so that they formed a round loop above the clasp before going back underneath the and hanging out the bottom. Marriage braids were designed so that they couldn't be put in by the dwarf who bore them, meaning their life partner had to be there to do it for them. Even Khayl, who thought most dwarf traditions were ridiculous and overrated thought this braiding one was clever.
"It was," Fili replied running a hand over the completed braids with a grin and exchanging places with Khayl. "Though I can not imagine how difficult it must have been for you to be raised by humans and then suddenly get thrown into the middle of dwarf culture."
"Now that was… interesting," Khayl grinned, though she knew Fili couldn't see it. She froze as he realised that he was undoing the large clasps that held her hair in a thick rope down her back. He also removed all of her other braids save the ones that hung before her ears.
"What are you doing?" Khayl asked curiously as he sectioned off a piece of hair in the same place she had done her own braids. "You are supposed to be adding, not removing."
"Someone like you, with hair like this," he pushed a piece of her long multi-hued hair over her shoulder for her inspection. "Should not keep it tied back and bound."
Khayl would have stared at him if she could. In substitute she merely allowed her mouth to hang open. "It bothered you that much?" she asked in wonder. "It bothered you enough that you have decided to change my whole style before we are even wed?"
"We will be wed soon enough," Fili replied almost smugly. "And yes, your hair has always bothered me. It is so beautiful and wild, like yourself. Stop trying to constrain it."
"It was only for practicality's sake," Khayl huffed, feeling the need to defend herself for some peculiar reason. "And what do you mean by 'we will be wed soon enough?'"
"I would have you mine before I must leave you." Fili said, referring to the quest. Khayl debated for a long moment how she was supposed to explain that she was going also, for clearly Thorin had not told his nephew. She was saved the necessity of this however when Fili announced that he had finished. He was much faster at braiding that she was, but she supposed that was the benefit of many long years spent braiding his hair each day.
Khayl ran her hands around, feeling the braids that went from behind her ears to the back of her head. Fili had used a similar design to hers, only the one in her hair was more elaborate, having four flat loops above the clasp before the remainder of the two braids hung loose at the back. He replaced the two beads that hung from the from the braids before her ears with his own beads. Khayl swallowed she he folded her old beads and clasps into her palm. This was it. No turning back. Not that she really ever had a chance to anyway.
Fili put his hands on her waist and dragged her back onto the couch where the leaned in a placed their foreheads together. There was peace in that moment, pure, unadulterated peace and a bond so thick it could never be severed.
*waves* hi! Guess who still exists? I do! *whispers* please don't throw anything at me...
I'm not abandoning you all, pinky promise. The problem is I'm in my last year of school and its only second week and I'm all ready getting dragged under... My horse keeps giving me reproachful looks because he's not being ridden, so don't you lot start too! (I'm joking haha)
Anyway, after Fili's scene in BOTFA armies I kind of missed the rest of the movie because my mind formulated a plan for a new fan fic. Guess what? It's still Fili and Khayl! Yep, Another road will be another take on Fili and Khayl and everybody else. It's pretty much a 'what if Khayl was born a dwarf' and a 'What if Fili didn't die' rolled into one. Please please let me know if you want me to post it. I'm handwriting before typing so it will be of a higher standard than TTE... XD
I missed you all so much! So I'm going to stop talking now and just post this chapter.
PS. Apologies to anyone who didn't get a reply to their last review. Its been so long I can't remember who I messaged back!